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‘Degree-factory unis fail the best, carry the worst’, says report
12:00AM August 24, 2024
Universities have turned into ‘degree factories’ that lower academic standards to reap revenue from students, the Menzies Research Centre claims in a new report.
Australian universities are “degree factories’’ that dilute academic standards through group assignments, woke teaching and cheating, a conservative think-tank has warned.
The Menzies Research Centre says universities should pay interest on student loans so they have “skin in the game’’ to ensure graduates earn enough money to repay their HECS debts.
It also calls for a crackdown on group assignments that force the smartest students to carry those who are struggling.
The report concludes that “a culture of credentialism’’ is watering down the value of a university degree, and calls for independent checks on student achievement and academic research.
“Universities are incentivised to accept academically marginal students and then lower the standards to pass them,’’ it states.
“Young people feel forced to obtain a tertiary qualification even though it provides them with no specific skills.
“Students and taxpayers have no guarantee about the quality of teaching they are purchasing with billions worth of student fees and taxpayer dollars.’’
The report calls for changes to the Higher Education Loans Scheme (HELP), which lets students borrow their tuition fees from the federal government and then repay the debt through higher taxes once they earn more than the minimum wage. The report says HELP loans “blunt the immediate price signal’’ to students, and encourage universities to “herd academically marginal students” into degrees.
It wants universities to be held liable for paying the indexation – which is pegged to the lower of inflation or wage growth – on student loans outstanding after five years. “Universities receive loan-financed student fees regardless of whether the tertiary training that it pays for is equipping these students with valuable or marketable skills and knowledge,’’ the report states.
“There is no penalty when universities fail to equip students with the skills they paid for.
“While the universities get off scot-free, it is the students themselves – along with the taxpayers … who are left bearing the burden.
“Future loans should be amended to include an interest charge to universities on any loan balances still outstanding after (five years).
“This reform would immediately force universities to start to care … whether their courses are actually equipping students with any meaningful understanding and skills.’’
The Menzies Research Centre has accused universities of cashing in on students by lowering academic standards.
The Menzies Research Centre also singles out a “tertiary credentials scam … where more and more jobs now require a university qualification, even when this is plainly unnecessary’’.
“The push to get more young people into university education, driven by a fear of being left behind in a service-based economy has, ironically, led to critical skills shortages in the trades sector,’’ it states.
Group assignments come under fire, too, with the report concluding they “lower the grading workload for academics’’ while disguising students who are struggling. The report calls on universities to do more to crack down on cheating, plagiarism and research fraud, citing a Nature magazine study that counted 10,000 research retractions worldwide last year.
The report takes aim at the “weaponisation of identity politics’’ in degrees in anthropology, history, media studies, gender studies and sociology.
It notes that maths and sciences degrees have been protected from woke instruction “by the objective standards that lie at their heart’’.
The report was written by the Menzies Research Centre’s youth policy director, Freya Leach, who is studying a bachelor of commerce and a bachelor of laws at the University of Sydney and stood unsuccessfully as a Liberal Party candidate in last year’s NSW election.
Here is the link:
I have a pretty wide cohort of friends and colleagues who have PhDs after their names and who work at various universities.
To a person they all agree that things are on the slide and that major change is needed. The shape and cost of that change is what is the subject of contention and I can say I would not be the Federal education Minister for quids – it really would be just too hard!
I have no idea how to fix things from where we are but know for sure major fixing is needed!
Does anyone have any good and workable ideas?
David.
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